


Laundry, eggs, cereals (and other lists)

by Epo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Feels, Derek Has Issues, Derek Needs To Use His Words, Derek-centric, Fluff and Angst, Grocery Shopping, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentioned Jennifer Blake, Mentioned Kate Argent, Mentioned Laura Hale, POV Derek, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epo/pseuds/Epo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Derek writes lists, eats too many eggs, buys bran.<br/>And Stiles peeks at Derek’s shopping cart.</p><p>(Or how sometimes you should write to finally gather your desires.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry, eggs, cereals (and other lists)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [n. 4 magliette stese, uova, cereali (e altre liste)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430670) by [Epo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epo/pseuds/Epo). 



> This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction in English...! It's not betaded and I'm sure there are a lot of mistakes (sorry) :/  
> Advices, beta-work and thoughts are precious. Don't be shy!

 

In the early hours of that Saturday, he had:

 _washed n_ _. 4 T-shirts_

_hanged out the laundry_

_tried to_ _repair his eletric stove_

 _failed to_ _repair his eletric stove_

_eaten: salad, n. 7 eggs, n. 2 apples_

_done n_ _. 75 push-ups_

 _written n._ _4 lists (what he had done, what he hadn’t done, what he should have done, his shopping list)_

How could he predict that at 5 pm he was going to find himself with his hands on Stiles? And in a bed.  
He only went out to the supermarket....

 

***

 

 _After_ , with nostrils and throat still burning for the sharp stench of fire and death, he started writing lists. Laura recommended a diary, but Laura was ... well, a better Alpha, first of all. She had no guilt able to eat her liver, sleep and dreams. She knew how to talk and write about emotions without feeling stupid, unlike him.

The lists were a good compromise: he had promised himself that he would not be so idiot again, he would not miss anymore the important details - like _Kate Argent_. (Although in reality that was an illusion, he kept on missing the important details – Peter, Jackson, Jennifer). The lists helped him.

Sometimes, Laura entered in his bedroom and wrote-added-changed something in his “Post-it wall”:

_Graduate_

_Wash dishes_

_Enroll in college_

_Want something_

_Lower the toilet seat_

_Have more sex_

_Think about what to do when you grow up_

***

 

“I would never have thought that I’d meet you here.”

Derek looked around and frowned. “Here… In the cereal aisle?”

Stiles nodded, scratching his head nervously. “Yeah, that.”

“Do you prefer the frozen food aisle?”

 

***

 

After Laura's death everything went to hell (again). He stopped writing lists, because... what was the point? He lived like a shadow between ruins and memories, trying to erase all traces his presence and transit. An animal with no scent and track.

The "Post-it wall" was a distant memory, lost in the noisy and crowded New York: two werewolves elusive and with wary look, anonymous in the multitude; a brother and sister like any other; a place where find again rare laughter, behind the door of an apartment that they started calling "home".  
  
But time in Beacon Hills has passed, too. Six months. One year. Two years. Once again, the pain became less oppressive, leaving room for thoughts - jagged, tangled, sharp, and snarling in the chaos of his mind.

 _find an apartment_  
  
with a blank wall  
  
He wrote one day on a receipt’s back.

 

***

 

In Stiles’s shopping cart there was a box of teddy bears shaped cereals, honey-coated. Every morning, he ate them after soaking them in a cup of milk until they were reduced to a disgusting mush (Derek knew it, because one time a witch cursed him blind and he escaped the woods following his sense of smell towards someone familiar. He found himself in Stiles’s kitchen, in front of his gross breakfast).

Derek grabbed from the shelf a box of muesli with bitter chocolate chip and dried blueberries.  
  
Then, he checked the list.  
  
"Ah," he murmured, reaching out again the shelf. Beside him, Stiles was still watching, attentive like a hawk.

"Bran? Are you serious?"

Derek turned and stared him, one eyebrow raised. "Why? Don’t you like bran? "  
  
Stiles gasped, shaking his head. "Wha-? No! No! Nobody likes bran, dude! "

It was true, but there were so many things Derek didn’t like. He had done them anyway. And he had survived.

"It mantains your regurality,” he simply explained, although Stiles seemed to consider his statement rather shocking.

Derek couldn’t believe that he was going to explain something so trivial to Stiles, who was able to spend entire nights staring his pc screen, reading link after link and memorazing absurd details about some odd and probably futile research.

(Derek knew it because every night, when he controlled Beacon Hills’s borders, he passed in front of Stiles’s house – in front of his bedroom – three times. He stood there always for a few seconds, minutes sometimes. Checking him. The busy typing on the keyboard. Or the steady breathing of sleep.)

"The bran is good for-" he began to explain, interrupted by Stiles, who was shaking his head, looking outraged.

"Derek, Jesus, stop, please. I know that the bran is good. And what is good for, "he said, winking and barely holding back laughing.  
  
Derek stared him impassively.  
  
"Derek ... we're really talking about ... that? About your _… regularity_? "  
  
"Are you five?"  
  
"Ah!" he chackled, running his hands through his hair. "No, it's you, and bran, and that is ...." He snorted loudly.  
  
Derek had had enough. He pushed his shopping cart.  
  
"I mean," Stiles continued, stopping him. "First of all, I catch you buying groceries, and ok, that is, of course you eat and go shopping, of course, yes. Then I discover that you buy healthy stuff because obviously, after trillions of push-ups you have to eat healthy things and so ... "He gestured vaguely toward Derek’s chest. "Then you do other push-ups, I imagine, of course, of course, dude. I mean, I suppose, that's what I meant. And then I find out that you eat bran and you worry about being regular and ... Dunno, what else do you have to buy? Toilet paper and lubricant? "He chuckled nervously.  
  
Derek pulled the list out his back pocket and checked. "Mmm."

 

***

 

Derek would never have written about his feelings in his lists, before. Laura did it. But Laura cried about romantic movies with the same conviction and ferocity with which she forced Derek’s control during the full moon.  
  
Laura had filled entire sheets of paper with quotes and messages about love. Affectionately reminding him that the two of them were a family, but there was a whole world beyond the confines of their apartment and the small pack they represented.  
  
He had felt proud of Jennifer, had thought about how Laura would have been proud of him. Their relationshit was everything she had always enjoyed - romance, sweetness, sensuality. But it turned out to be all fake, a blurred pretense, like a predictable movie, and now the thought of those moments made him sick. Laura certainly would not have liked it.  
  
And yet, after all, after Jennifer, (after Kate), after thinking he was no longer able to wish, instead here he was writing never spoken desires, his pen hasty and impulsive on paper. Slipping between the telephon number of the laundromat and the row of works he had to do in his apartment.

 

 _Dinner_ _: omelets and boiled potatoes._  
  
_Stiles._  
  
_10 pm meeting with Chris Argent for troll issue (he smells like wolfsbane, always. Avoids the eye. He said 12 sentences without lying.)_  
  
_dreams: a hot body, slender. Whispers._  
  
_repaired bathroom faucet._  
  
_masturbated: 2 times (thinking about him)_

 

_***_

 

Stiles came after him, following him in all the supermarket’s aisles. "Let me see that list."

 

***

 

The lists of "what he should have done" were the most difficult, because _remember to pay_ _the electricity_ _bill_ and _tell the truth_ _to mum about what was happening to me_ ended up intertwined; past and present were connected in a way that even the most powerful spells couldn’t do.

His pack was often in those lists. When he should have insisted (Scott was too often astonishingly blind and stubborn), when he should have listened (Isaac), when he should have protected them (Stiles got hurt so often).

It was unbearable, when Stiles got hurt.

 

***

  
Stiles followed him to his apartment. He slipped into Derek’s car as if it was normal, sifting through his groceries as if they were his own.  
  
"Don’t you have better things to do?" Derek asked.  
  
Stiles shrugged and walked into the apartment. He took off his sneakers and then left them in the middle of the living room. "No, I don’t."

He still had in his hand the shopping list, the one he had read aloud, in the middle of the supermarked, focused and confused. "Milk, bread, steak, read an essay about Darwinian theory, cheese, a kiss, eggs, done: n. 125 push-ups, tomatoes, salad, Stiles ... "He had looked up with surprise and bewilderment and Derek had said nothing.  
  
He couldn’t explain that sometimes it was difficult to separate the lists.  
  
What he had done. What he hadn’t done. What he should have done.  
  
Shopping lists. Wishlists. Lists of thoughts.  
  
"Are there more of these?" Stiles asked and Derek knew that he wouldn’t let it go so easily. He put the bags on the kitchen table and pointed with a nod to his bedroom. "Yeah… over there."  
  
Stiles watched the closed door, then Derek, for a moment. Then he went near him and put a hand on his arm, stopping him as he placed a package of pasta in the pantry.  
  
"Did you find every item of your list?" He asked.

Derek looked at him and discovered that he was _so_ close. He could hear the beat of his heart, resonating in his ears and pulsing through the fingers on his skin.  
  
"No," he replied. Because it was obvious that he had not found everything.  
  
He had not even tried, for that matter.  
  
Stiles closed his eyes for a moment. "Okay," he exhaled serious, and then chuckled, confusing situations and emotions, as always. "Okay," he repeated. "Stop me if you don’t... if I misunderstood, if I read it wrong, if ... Just stop me."  
  
Stiles brought his face close to his and kissed him, slow and hesitant. Derek felt the sweetness of that kiss right in the belly, in his claws and fangs, all the way through the point where is control anchored, between a familiar anger and this new strange feeling.

His lips parted and he returned the kiss.

 

***

 

It was 5 pm and they were in his bed. They were caressing each other, t-shirts left on the floor.  
  
According to his list, in that moment he should have called the Sheriff: he wanted to tell him that he had decided to enroll in college and study History, so he couldn’t accept his proposal of a work in the Central.  
  
But the Sheriff could wait.  
  
He kissed Stiles’s neck again and then lifted his head to watch his face: Stiles was smiling, and Derek found himself smiling in turn.  
  
"What are you doing?" He whispered.  
  
"I read," he said, pointing with a finger on the wall next to the bed.  
  
The post-it wall.  
  
"Okay," he said, because Stiles could read them. And write on them, maybe, one day.

He ran a hand through Stilesìs hair, drawing with his palm the profile of his nape.  
  
"And what are you reading?"  
  
Stiles put his hands on Derek’s naked hips and pulled until he was lying down over him.  
  
"Do you want to make love with me?" He asked.  
  
_He read it._  
  
His voice foolishy uncertain, as if Derek's desires weren’t written on that wall, black and white in front of his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

_the end._

 


End file.
